Joel Kinnaman's New R-Rated Action Thriller Polarizes Critics On Rotten Tomatoes

Published Oct 11, 2026, 6:22 PM EDT

Growing up around performers, storytelling was always central to Emma's life. Add in a nerdy older brother who introduced her to Marvel at far too young an age, and her love for entertainment led her to pursue a Journalism degree at Indiana University, where she discovered her passion for entertainment reporting. She spent nearly one year in Los Angeles covering industry stories and fully immersing herself in the world of entertainment media.

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Joel Kinnaman's latest action movie is getting a divisive critics' review.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, The Beast has debuted with a 53% critics' score from 17 reviews. Directed by Renny Harlin, best known for Die Hard 2 (1990), Cliffhanger (1993), and Deep Blue Sea (1999), the R-rated action thriller stars Kinnaman and Samuel L. Jackson. It also holds a 56% audience score from 50+ verified ratings.

With only 17 reviews counted so far, The Beast's Rotten Tomatoes score could still fluctuate as more critics weigh in. Nevertheless, the early reception gives the action thriller a mixed start, with reviews largely divided over its over-the-top action and story, while Jackson's performance has emerged as one of its stronger elements.

ScreenRant's review of The Beast scored it a 4 out of 10, praising Jackson's ability to carry the movie despite finding its action difficult to follow and describing the movie as an "exercise in action movie absurdity."

The Beast puts Jackson in the role of the President of the United States, whose motorcade comes under attack as a militia attempts to coordinate a coup. With Secret Service agent Taft (Kinnaman) severely injured, the president is forced behind the wheel of his heavily armored limousine, known as "The Beast," and must use its classified weaponry to fight his way to safety.

Though the film probably won't rank among Harlin's best movies, his career includes action classics such as Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger. The filmmaker is also behind all three installments of The Strangers reboot trilogy, with The Beast returning him to the kind of explosive action thriller that helped define his earlier career.

It also reunites Kinnaman and Jackson more than a decade after they appeared together in 2014's RoboCop. Kinnaman starred as Alex Murphy, the police officer transformed into the titular cyborg, while Jackson played television host Pat Novak. This time around, Kinnaman takes more of a supporting role as the injured Taft, leaving Jackson's president at the center of the action.

For Kinnaman, The Beast continues a busy stretch that has included Netflix's Jo Nesbø's Detective Hole, For All Mankind season 5, and Imperfect Women. The actor has also become a familiar face in some of the best sci-fi and action movies through projects including The Suicide Squad, Altered Carbon, and RoboCop.

The movie's audience reception isn't significantly different from its critical response so far. The Beast's 56% Popcornmeter score sits just three percentage points above its 53% critics' rating, suggesting that early moviegoers are similarly divided on Harlin's latest action thriller.

However, both numbers are still based on relatively small samples. With only 17 critic reviews and more than 50 verified audience ratings counted at the time of writing, The Beast's Rotten Tomatoes scores could shift as more reviews and ratings are added.

The Beast is now playing in theaters.

The Beast

Cast

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  President of the United States

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  Agent Taft

In this high-stakes action film, the President of the United States must utilize his armored limousine, known as "The Beast," to thwart a coup orchestrated by a militia of unidentified hostiles, leveraging its advanced and classified offensive capabilities.